2018-11-20 Paris

Work brought me to Paris for two days. Some rail related impressions and a few images of some places I visited

1I needed to go to Paris for a work conference. As the conference would start early I needed to catch a TGV from Rotterdam to Paris the preceding day. I took the opportunity and liberty to book an early train so I had some time to spend in Paris.

9Passing one of the large SNCF maintenance depots in the suburbs of Paris

10Snow had turned to sleet. Very unpleasant cold, wet weather. We had arrived in Paris, Gare du Nord, with a small delay.

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14Bombardier Omneo, SCNF Class Z 55000. Entered service in 2013 and is still being built. Sofar approximately 116 trainsets have been delivered out of a contract comprising 940 in multiple classes in total. Top speed 200 km/h

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17Time to move on. It was way too wet and too cold to stay out for long.

18Impressive roof

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27The front of the station is equally impressive

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29A memorial to the railway men and women who died in active service in two wars.

30My hotel was quite close to the Sacre Coeur, so I paid a visit.

31View over de city. It had seen better days :-)

32Metro station Anvers with its classic Art Nouveau signing

33By now I had walked from Gare du Nord to my hotel, from my hotel to Sacre Coeur and from there to Metro station Anvers.

34RATP Metro no 2. I took it to Pigalle and changed there to line number 12 and left at Rue de Bac

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38I walked to the Musée de l'Armée

39to meet this little friend

40It was situated in front of the south side of the Hotel des Invalides

41This is one of only two surviving Péchot-Bourdon articulated steam locomotives

42One resides in Dresden and the other is usually in Slovenia, but brought to Paris for the occasion of the centenary of the cessation of hostilities of WW1. And guess what, I incidentally happened to be here!! No.....

43It was designed for military railways directly behind the front lines.

44Rumour has it the loco was conceived as a double Fairlie to enable it to keep moving if one of the sides would be damaged. Personally I hold that as an urban myth. The best it could do was bring the crew into safety if such a thing would occur. Adaptability for badly laid track and extremely sharp curvature are more likely to be the reasons for this design.

45The chimneys have large spark arrestors to catch all embers. Sparks are conspicuous at night. One of Murpy's laws of combat says: Never be conspicuous, it draws enemy fire. A simple wisdom.